In The Dungeons Deep
by Renzin
Summary: "I ought to boil your mouth with lavender water, for all the stink of your words." The Uruk leans his head down as far as he can, snapping his teeth at her and grinning when she flinches. "You just try it, tarka. I'll fuck you up if I smell any of that going on." A rather dark and twisted affair, better left forgotten.


**In The Dungeons Deep**

A rather twisted affair, better left forgotten.

Lydia is certain that at one point, the beast in front of her will bite. It, or rather _he_ is staring at her with feral eyes, the yellow iris merging with angry red veins to give the overall impression of acidic pus. Both hands are tightly chained above its head, as are both feet to the floor, far enough apart that she can kneel between its legs to sponge away at the rather filthy chest.

As a healer she's been tasked with tending to their resident Uruk hai in the dungeons of Edoras, at the very least until it gives up some worthy information. It's likely important, considering she's never heard of the riders ever taking one of Saruman's spawn as prisoner, and probably to do with the recent rumors of raids start up again at their borders. 3 years has passed since Sauron has fallen. 3 blissfully quiet years where Lydia has had the luxury of gossiping with her friends about the Lady Eowyn's marriage rather than which of their kin in the plains of Rohan has been taken that month.

She had been quite happy to deal with the usual, unavoidable tasks of elderly diseases or perhaps a child with a nasty toothache, until a few members of the guard had knocked on her door this morning. Of course, she had followed without hesitance. Afterall, she was a reputable healer, gifted one could say for her age, which was one of the only reasons it was easy to get away as a 23 year old with no husband. If the husbandless spindster of the community must be so, at least she is an accomplished healer. So it went without saying that despite being told the situation before entering her patient's cell, she would approach the matter with the same stern professionalism that she always did.

Words, however, always seem to dilute the situation at hand.

The Uruk kai had obviously been tortured, several purposeful slashes still bleeding and burn marks on the legs. This in itself does not bother Lydia; she had of course seen rather vile things in her line of work, and the stinking animal in front of her is nothing more than an unfortunate requirement of her job.

By Eru, did it _reek._ The stables in the peak of summer were more bearable than this. As disgusted as she feels about it, it is turn of practice to clean the patient before stitching them together again. So even if she is certain her patient had never even seen a bath before, she soaks her sponge from the bucket of freezing water she has been supplied with and roughly slaps it against the Uruk's chest.

She flinches as it snarls viciously, obviously not happy with the temperature of the water. ' _Serves a hellish creature like you right', she_ thinks snidely. Lydia keeps her face aloof as usual, as the guard watching them chuckles nastily at their prisoner's misfortune. She feels smug. She may not have been one of those who rode to battle, but she can do her part in her own way.

Lydia rubs the first layer of grim away as quickly as she can, ignoring the way her patient tries to bend its neck forward to bite her. She doesn't bother looking at its face when washing away the second layer of dirt and sweat, or on the third or forth layer. Soon she can vaguely see that in the dim light its skin isn't truly black as she previously thought, but grimy and red in colour. She gets back to her feet, then without warning empties the rest of the icey water over its head, openly smirking as it roars its displeasure and the guard outright bellows with laughter.

If anything, she thinks it should be grateful. After all, she didn't purposely exclude its burn areas, so they would feel at least a little duller. She calls over the guard to hold the Uruk back while she quickly stitches the deep cuts along its chest and arms, scowling as it tries to struggle as much as possible. At one point, the prisoner lifts its hips to throw the guard sharply off him and snaps its jaws as quickly as it can at Lydia. Luckily for her, the guard's fall had tipped her over as well.

She stares with wide eyes at the Uruk, mildly shaken by the near miss, but quickly gets back to work as the guard furiously backhands it and holds it down again. It roars and struggles the entire time, but eventually the fishing wire is tied and cut (Lydia would never waste good surgical string on an Uruk when it could be used for one of her real patients). She works quickly, pressing a premade balm of hers into all its open wounds and another on its burns so that they clot. She doesn't bother to use a soothing one to ease the heat of them, and as soon as she is done Lydia packs away and allows the guard to escort her out.

As he holds the door for her, the guard jokes, "It fills me with pride to see a Rohirrim woman so strong against our enemies."

Lydia smiles blandly, knowing that the Uruk could still hear them. "As much as it pains me to heal scum like that, I am happy to do my duty to our people."

* * *

Several days later, Lydia is called again to the dungeons. She practically drags her feet as she goes, wearing the same dress as before considering she couldn't wear such sullied cloth around any of her other patients. The wounds are much the same as before, other than a broken knee cap. The same guard shrugs and answers her silent question. "It's stubborn, and the men want what it knows."

"And what would that be?" Lydia says with an arched brow. She guesses that this guard is not taken with a wife from the way he is happy to give her as many grins and liberties as possible.

"This brute was caught trying to flee along the Steps. We believe it to be a part of a large group of surviving Uruks still daring to pillage our lands." The guard is tall and fair like most of their kind are, and she decides to inquire his name as well. It turns out to be Haleth, and she gives her own back in turn, enjoying his high spirits at the exchange.

Unfortunately, their prisoner decides to be even more trouble this time. It almost nicks Lydia's face again and manages to roar loudly enough in her ear to make it ring uncomfortably for a while after. Its leg is set in a splint and wrapped, though Lydia wonders what the point of it is if her patient is most certainly not going to be set free.

She leaves the dungeons with Haleth escorting her again, in good spirits with such a charming guard calling her 'my lady'.

* * *

Every few days, Lydia is called to do her duty. Haleth, herself and the Uruk are all aware of the routine in her visits. She is required to always rinse its body and heal any wounds that could be fatal or become infected. The splint on its knee is damp and rotting slightly from the dungeons moist air, so Lydia must plan to visit the lumberjack and purchase more wood. Haleth in his gentlemanly way offers to buy it for her, and excitedly sets off immediately to do so.

Sadly for Haleth, Lydia thinks him a bit of an idiot. While the Uruk cannot harm her the way it is chained, she is still certain that Haleth would be in serious trouble if he is caught leaving his post. She shakes her head and begins to rub her sponge onto the Uruk's skin. With her usual clinical distain, she notices that they prefer to beat him with blunt objects nowadays; less blood, but harder for her to find the damage in the darkness. Usually she maps them out by his tensed muscles and sharp hisses of pain, his heavy breaths low and laboured.

Lydia does not pity the Uruk anymore than she does the pigs that are slaughtered for food, less even. Their livestock has not been responsible for the raping and pillaging of her people. Absently, she finds herself talking in a drawling voice that one can associate with mockery. "So you fought in the war, I imagine."

She doesn't expect an answer, and is mildly pleased at surprising the Uruk. It likely hadn't expected her to make small talk. She can feel its ugly eyes on her, daring her to draw close enough to those teeth and claws. "I wonder what troop you were part of."

Lydia begins to apply the healing balm to his bruises, irritated that she was already running low. "Did you fight with a sword, or a bow?" Without looking into its eyes, she knows that it is wary of her, and the fact that she is a threat to such a brutish creature makes her wicked. "It matters not, I suppose." Lydia looks up to smile widely, unable to help herself. "You will end up as a dirty corpse to be burnt like the rest of your kin."

The Uruk flies into a rage, roaring and straining its body to reach her. Lydia is more or less used to the guttural noises, so while she does flinch away and stand quickly, she is able to laugh at the stupid creature at her feet.

Haleth returns quickly, running in as soon as he hears the commotion. Seeing the Uruk is still chained and Lydia is safe, he sets down a small pile of wood for a splint and moves forward to shut their prisoner up.

* * *

The next time Lydia is called, Haleth is not on duty. He had run into her once as she had wondered around the market, and was kind enough to escort her home telling her that he had been stationed to patrol the wall instead of the dungeons. Haleth was considerably more upset about this than Lydia was, but she had smiled and promised that they would see each other soon.

Lydia now finds herself wishing that Haleth really hadn't left. The new guard is named Baldred, and while similar to Haleth in features, has an unsettling quality that Lydia does not like. He stares at her far more than he watches the Uruk. When he escorts her to and from the dungeons, he always talks of how dangerous it is for young maidens to be alone, fixating on it enough to make her wonder if he even dreams about such an occurrence. He walks too close to her, and she thinks he may have a breath to frighten even the Uruk away.

What was once a balefully inconvenience of a job has turned into an issue that leaves Lydia nervous and sick at times. She now often thinks of how grateful she is to live in an area always populated with friendly neighbours that would tell her of Baldred being nearby if he was off duty.

One day Baldred decides to pick a fight with the Uruk, and as soon as it snarls loudly he throws a heavy punch into its gut, repeating the gesture until Lydia intervenes. "Do not do that again." She snaps furiously at Baldred. "You're increasing my workload with every punch, so unless necessary I ask that you control yourself."

There's a nasty gleam in Baldred's eye as she says this, and he advances worryingly close to her until her face almost touches his own. "My lady, it is my duty to keep you clean."

Again, Lydia is made wary by the oddness of Baldred's words, but she does not give up her ground. "I rather thought it was to keep the beast from causing trouble." She mvoes back to work on the Uruk, finding the silence oppressing and the company terrible.

* * *

Lydia is amused to find that Baldred has made poor use of his break before fetching her, enough to force him to leave and relieve himself. She welcomes the absence of her guard and busies herself on the Uruk until she notices that it isn't ignoring her as it has become inclined to do. Curiously, she meets its sharp eyes and finds them lacking in their usual hatred. Lydia pauses her scrubbing of its armpit to scowl and give it one warning. "Whatever mischief is growing in that head of yours, I suggest you remove it hastily."

The Uruk's morphs into something she hasn't seen before, but does not deign to speak, at least at first. Once her attention leaves his eyes, Lydia starts suddenly as she realises that the low murmur she had barely noticed before was the Uruk speaking in its natural tongue. It has a low and gravelly voice, and its words are close to the growl of a wolf. She finds it bizarre and for some reason, doesn't think that what its saying is offensive towards her. As bewildered as she is, she forgets to dump the rest of the water on it and leaves the dungeons before Baldred can return.

* * *

Naturally, Baldred is furious that she has left without him. Her neighbours tell herthan he had furiously knocked on her door for several minutes before leaving in a hurry; Lydia was lucky that one of her friend's son had a nasty fall in the middle of the night or she would have likely had to pretend to be out. When confronted the next day, she had vaguely said that she could not wait for him to return when she had other appointments to keep, even if such appointments technically did not exist.

The Uruk's behaviour has changed subtly, and it irks Lydia. While Baldred often riles it up to lose its temper at least once a visit, the Uruk no long glares at Lydia hatefully, nor tries to go for her throat half as much. It wears a subtle glare more akin to predator stalking prey, darting to every move she makes.

When Baldred sits at the small chair in the corner of the dungeon, he takes out a small loaf and handful of jerky everyday for his midday meal. While his attention is diverted Lydia has usually already started stitching the Uruk or using one of her balms, but today she feels uneasy and muddled as she washes the prisoner. One of her more elderly patients has passed in the night, something she knew was inevitable; the past few months had been filled with collecting herbs for tea that would sooth his pain and give him more time with his family. While she was no stranger to such a thing, Lydia was in low spirits, and the odd change in the Uruk had left her grasping at a way to ground herself once again.

As her mind wandered, her usually rough and efficient scrubs of the sponge slowed down. They became softer and gentle, scratching against the coarse skin the Uruk in a way that made its eyes involuntarily become heavy lidded and its muscles relax. Lydia's hands began to fall into the usual massaging movements she used on other patients, kneading into the Uruk's flesh in a rhythmic pattern that she didn't break until a strange growl she hadn't heard it make before started to rumble in its chest. Lydia looked up at the Uruk to see its relaxed face, then froze when she noticed the tented folds of the Uruk's loincloth.

Her mouth became dry. Without another glance at the prisoner, Lydia dropped the bucket and ran.

* * *

She'd expects some sort of chastising to follow her sudden departure, so when Baldred grabs her roughly by the arm and demands to know what was going on, Lydia sputters out that she was experiencing the 'woman's moontime'. Knowing that could only mean one thing, Baldred abruptly lets her go without complaint.

She hurries to her home, shaking her head at how a guard of Edoras who most certainly had shed plenty of blood in battle, could be so disgusted by such a natural process. It isn't until Lydia has boiled some tea and is sitting in her favourite chair in the kitchen, that she allows herself to think upon the events that have caused her to flee.

She shouldn't be that surprised. Most men were soothed by a healers' touch enough to become aroused, and Lydia never even blushed anymore. It was a natural response and while she had had several men express interest in her (only to be driven away by her dark temper and sharp tongue), she knew that it was no more than the body's natural response to a woman touching a man in such a way, no matter how medical the reason may be.

However this was no man. The Uruk in the dungeons was a foul abomination that she would be happy to see dead any day of the week, and most certainly did not deserve the care that she could offer. Lydia thought through every moment she had spent today in his company. She had been distracted, and forgotten who she was dealing with; her hands had slipped into their natural disposition to be kind on a patient, and so the Uruk's body had reacted like the rest of her male patients.

Lydia felt ill. Who knew how many women the Uruk had defiled? What a foul thing to associate with the beast, that it had the ability to ruin a woman with the same tool a man would love one. He was a creation from an evilness that she could not comprehend fully, and yet her orders were to keep him alive, and nothing else. Why had she felt so inclined to be gentle? Of course, her primary thoughts were far from favouring the Uruk, but subconsciously there must have been a reason.

Her mind reminds her of that low, rumbling noise the Uruk had made when it had been under her ministrations, something that had come from inside its chest like a purr. The unknown words his had spoken in his raspy tongue had done something twisted to her insides that she did not like. He had been content enough to make such a sound, because of _her._

Lydia grips her tea tightly. ' _The Uruk is an_ it, _not a he'._ She scolds herself vehemently. And with that, she returns back to the dungeons to finish her duties for the day.

* * *

When she returns, she half expected Baldred to have beaten the Uruk further, but the latter must have been able to reduce its erection enough to avoid the guard's notice. Lydia, feeling rather like punishing the Uruk for her loss of judgement, empties the rest of the cold water over it as usual. It hisses furiously, as if disbelieving that she could be so cold after warming its blood so.

When applying the bruise balm, she digs her fingers into its swollen skin, vengefully smug to hear it growl and snap its jaws above her head. She finishes off with a particularly wide discolouration around its ribs, most likely because they have been broken. She should really give it some herbs to chew for infection and have its hands lowered so that it has less trouble breathing, but since she can see that nothing internal has been punctured by bone, Lydia doesn't bother.

It's when she's reaching around its back that she hears its deep inhalation and the skin on her scalp feels its hot breath. Lydia pulls back in horror, and meets the yellow eyes of the Uruk. He's _smelling_ her. Even with her glaring at him in disbelief, the brute has the nerve to flair his arched nostrils in her direction, a pleased purr starting up again in his chest.

She feels violated, but her cheeks are burning from a mix of rage and embarrassment. Lydia curls her lip up into a snarl she thinks could rival the Uruk's, but is furious to find that his face contorts into a leer, serrated teeth bared and far more formidable than her own. For the first time in his presence, Lydia is truly scared. She thrusts her fingers into the flesh where she believes the break in his ribs to be, squeezing her eyes shut at the loudest roar he has ever given in her presence bellowed into her ear. Two arms that turn out to be Baldred's pull her roughly backwards, leaving her on the filthy floor as he moves forward to repeatedly kick the Uruk as hard as possible.

Despite the dislike she has for the Uruk, Lydia is unused to such open violence in front of her. She keeps her eyes shut and stumbles out of the room, leaning heavy on the wall outside. Eventually, Baldred joins her. He is panting lighty, and is in the best mood she has seen him in so far. "What did you do to anger it?" He asks jovially, as if he is thanking her for it.

Lydia shakes her head and refuses to look at him. "Does a beast like him really need a reason to want to kill me?"

Baldred shrugs, then escorts her back, feeling pleasent enough to hold open the gate for her today. She is mightily unnerved by his happiness at getting to beat the Uruk, but even more so at her reaction to the Uruk herself.

* * *

The Uruk remains far too intent on Lydia than she is comfortable with from there on out. She is suddenly quite happy that Baldred rarely leaves his post, so that she is never alone with the Uruk's leering eyes and far too deep voice. She finds him distracting. No matter how cold the water she throws on him, or how rough she is when treating him, the Uruk does not stop watching her hungrily.

Lydia desperately hopes that the soldiers will get their information from the Uruk soon, so that she never has to deal with him again. but even with her purposely biased healing and his daily tortures, the Uruk is frightfully enduring. The break in his knee is almost healed, weeks faster than an average man. Lydia has heard many a time how the Uruk kai were bred to be the perfect warriors for the fallen White Wizard; the soldiers often spoke of how their armies could march at flat out runs for hours without stopping. It begged the question as to how they had even managed to catch this one alive.

One day Baldred himself is not feeling well. He is pale and sweating unnaturally, so Lydia brews him a tea to purge the sickness from his body. As expected, he seeks a bucket to vomit up whatever rotten food he has eaten, leaving Lydia alone with the Uruk once again.

She is suddenly nervous again. Every part of the Uruk is large and muscular, more noticeable now than ever. And of course, he's watching her, taking deep, even breaths that suck her scent into his lungs as if he is trying to get drunk on it. After a short while, he begins to murmur in that language Lydia doesn't understand, something known to her as Black speech for its foul nature.

But weakly, Lydia doesn't think it is as foul as described; it reminds her of endless dark woods, of wolves hunting at night, of being swallowed up by words that are sharp enough to engrave stone. She feels dizzy, and sways slightly before leaning back to sit on her heels. The Uruk stops speaking, and in the silence Lydia finds she can finally think again.

Furiously, she glares at him. "Whatever spells your Master has taught you, do not speak them in my presence!"

Lydia doesn't expect to see honest surprise on the Uruk's face nor amusement. Her face grows hot again, and she has half a mind to slap him when he starts to speak in the Black tongue again, pausing hear and there as if he is leaving her room to respond to him. Eventually she does. "Your tongue cannot rest today." She grumbles as she picks up her sponges and rings the water out of it again. "Perhaps you can use it to tell our men what they want to know."

"Won't give a fucking thing to those shitheads." Lydia shrieks in surprise, and the Uruk winces at the noise. They stare at one another, one gaping in shock while the other appears rather proud of himself.

"Y-you speak..." What Lydia meant to say is lost, as she is still rather aghast at hearing such vile words. She's never been spoken to so brashly before, though she notices that he wasn't insulting _her._ When the Uruk merely snorts, she continues with a scowl. "I ought to boil your mouth with lavender water, for all the stink of your words."

The Uruk leans his head down as far as he can, snapping his teeth at her and grinning when she flinches. "You just try it, _tarka._ I'll fuck you up if I smell any of that going on."

Lydia jabs a finger at his chest furiously. "You will _not_ speak to me like that, not after I've spent so many of my days keeping you alive. If you wish to call me names, say in the common tongue so that I can properly respond!"

He shocks her once again by chuckling out loud, and the unexpected sound does something terrible to her gut. She hadn't ever imagined an Uruk was capable of laughter. He smirks at her and says, "Ain't called you anything to piss yourself about."

"You did, I heard you!" Lydia flusters angrily. " _Tarka,_ what does that mean?"

"White skin." The Uruk nods his head to gesture to her pale skin. "S'what we call you lot. Elf scum are _golug,_ dwarves are _shakutarbik."_

Lydia stares at him in surprise at the innocent answer, then narrows her eyes. "You really are quite verbal today. Any reason why you haven't said where the other orcs are hiding?"

His face drops into a rather fearsome scowl. "I ain't a fucking orc. I am Uruk hai."

She raises a eyebrow. "Is there really a difference?"

"Yeah, there is." He coils his tongue and spits to the side. Lydia curls her lip in disgust. "Orcs are orcs. If they see me, they'll try and kill me." He suddenly grins nastily. "Not that they can. I'll stick them like fucking pigs and piss in their mouths."

Bile rises in Lydia's throat. She has never heard anyone quite so vile as him, and she can't quite believe that she's even conversing with him. "Surely you are on the same side; you have the same Master-"

"I ain't got no fucking Master!" He snarls suddenly. He utters a rather violent line of what Lydia can guess are curses in his tongue, then continues with a rather insulted glare. "You _tarks_ oughta know, the war's over. There ain't no reason to put up with stinking orcs anymore."

Lydia finds this rather confusing. "But you are united under a common goal, of ridding our races of good out of this world."

The Uruk snorts. "Fuck that."

She stares with a a slack jaw at him. How can he be so flippant? Surely he lives to bring pain to others? Lydia voices her questions.

"Fucking full of yourselves, you are." The Uruk says rather accusingly. "I wasn't doing shit to you lot, then I get fucking hunted down and dragged to this shithole."

Dryly, Lydia is already finding even his course vocabulary to be rather limited. In a rather snide tone, she answers. "I somehow doubt that you could be so innocent. Are you really so surprised that you would not be punished for all the crimes you have done to my people?"

"I've seen plenty of my lot burnt and drowned. What else do you expect us to do? You were the fucking enemy." He mimics her tone rather well.

Suddenly, Lydia is filled with anger again. "A man would not rape the women of her enemies." She hisses in his face.

The Uruk bares his teeth triumphantly. "You really believe that, _tarka?_ Men came to fight with us. I've seen them do shit that would make you piss yourself!"

"The Dunlanders are as evil as Uruk hai and orcs alike!" She yells at him. "Do not dare to tell me that the brave men of my country would commit such foul deeds."

"If we had females for them to get, they would've." He countered.

Lydia has heard of the stories of how the Uruk kai were bred by Saruman, and how they were pulled from the ground, but as far as she knows the orcs were around long before Saruman and Sauron. "Are you telling me that orcs were also bred in the ground? That Dunlanders fall from the sky?" She sneers condescendingly.

"Orcs have their females well hidden, and I ain't never seen a Dunlander bitch so I wouldn't know." He said rather defensively. "And we didn't come from the ground, _He_ put us there."

Lydia frowns, then understands that 'he' must mean Saruman, though she expected the Uruk to be less hostile towards him. "So you are born...then put into the earth?"

The Uruk nods, and Lydia feels like ice at the next words he says. " _Tarkas_ were stolen so that he could make us to fight. Puts us in the ground and does magic to make us grow faster."

Lydia stares at him, then rolls to the side to vomit into the drain. As soon as she thinks she is done, more bile burns her throat until she feels weak and is shaking. Several of her relatives were killed in raids during the war. What were the chances that some of them met this fate? She starts to cry silently, and glares at the Uruk with murder in her eyes. "Men would have _never_ done that to you. Your kind are _monsters,_ all of you."

The chained Uruk snarls in offence. " _I_ never did any of that shit! The only time I left Isenguard was to fight you lot, and by the time I made it back the whole place was fucking flooded over!"

Lydia wonders why he's even trying to convince her of this. Surely he would be proud? "Don't you dare lie. I hope to Eru that your death is a long one. I hope I get to watch. And I hope you know that it will be soon, because whether you tell our men where your friends are or not, you will _never_ leave here alive!"

She scrambles to her feet as he roars at her, fleeing home once again.

* * *

Baldred cannot report her for leaving, considering that he was away from his post as well. He accepts her excuse of the Uruk scaring her as she comes the next time far gaunter and harrowed than usual. She almost seems afraid to breath in the dungeon, but Baldred still finds her a fine thing to watch.

He, like many others knows of Lydia well. She is pale and well endowed, her hair a golden brown that is always tied away from her neck. If not for her savage temper and excuse that a husband would take her away from her work, someone would've most likely forced her to settle after her uncle had died and left her a comfortable home to retire in.

Baldred is drawn in by the creases of her dress around her backside, and the distinction between her broad shoulders and taught waist. He finds her almost too enticing even when dressed more modestly than many young woman. He desires to have her, and teach her the obedience she sorely lacks.

But of course, she infuriates him, thinking herself to be cleverer than a man. It is obvious that her uncle had been unable to stop her prickly exterior from forming. Baldred believes that he could make her bend over. To have such a pretty wife that was as meek as any other would be a true gift.

And now for whatever reason, Lydia walks into the dungeons without meeting his eye, and flinches at every flicker of the torch lights. It's almost too beautiful to witness. Baldred had planned to slowly court her, but he can't help to ease the pain of his lust by halting her before she leaves with a hard grip on her arm. Leaning over her shoulder, he whispers, "You are quiet today." She flinches, and he is gleeful to see it. "I prefer you like this." Baldred dips his head to the side of her neck and sucks on the skin.

He is knocked back by Lydia, who has seemed to have broken from her odd mood. She slaps him hard and tries to rush through the door, but is caught by Baldred as he curses her and throws her down onto the dungeon floor.

She is utterly terrified. Screaming, Lydia claws at his face as he tries to straddle her, struggling with all her might as the Uruk is for some reason roaring in fury behind them. Her wrists are caught by Baldred, then her head slammed back onto the stone floor enough to heavily daze her. For a moment she blacks out, only to open her eyes several seconds later. Lydia finds Baldred half kneeling as he tries to get a grip on her waist. She knows what will happen. He will carry her home, saying to her neighbours that she fainted with the strain of her work. He will rape her, and she will be forced to marry him to retain her honour or leave Edoras in disgrace.

If she thought she hated the Uruk, then for Baldred there must only be loathing.

Yelling a war cry, she drags her nails over his face again, and in a split second decides to throw her weight sideways to knock them both over and into the lap of the Uruk. Baldred curses again and pushes her off of him, and as he leans up her, forgets that while chained back the Uruk still has his best weapon at hand.

Baldred is unfortunate that the Uruk was ready for him to come towards him, and that he is a natural at tearing his throat out.

And with that, Lydia finds herself in the lap of an Uruk hai warrior with her dying would-be rapist as he desperately grasping at his vigorously bleeding neck with wide eyes. They meet her own cold ones, and find no aid there. Lydia stares at him until she can see that he is empty. She takes her time to feel her blood slow a little and a sense of bitter satisfaction, before raising her eyes to meet the Uruk's.

They look at each other for a long time. There is blood all over his maw, and with his acidic eyes capturing hers, he slowly drawing his tongue around his mouth to collect it. Lydia shivers, then whimpers. As she does, she can she the slits of his eyes dilute even further. She wants to run, but she cannot move. She wants to scream, but the utter silence in the dungeon seems euphoric somehow. She wants to touch Baldred's neck. Lydia doesn't know why, but it's something she _can_ do, so she manages to look away from the Uruk and dip her finger into the mess that was once a functioning throat. As does, the muscles in the lap she is lying on jump, and the low rumble from the Uruk's chest begins. She knows he is absorbed in her dipping her fingers around the warm neck of Baldred, and as morbid as her numb brain can see, she feels calm. The sort that she feels is about to shatter with her, but for the moment she can breath.

A deep grunt makes her look at the Uruk again. He's aroused, she realises. He looks like he wants to consume her, and distantly Lydia decides that she has gone mad. She doesn't care. Baldred tried to...is dead, and the Uruk killed him. He could have killed her as well, but her didn't seemed so inclined to. She was feeling reckless, and already half a ghost. She raises her finger to the side of his mouth and rubs the blood onto his lip. Without waiting for her to finish, the Uruk's tongue presses against her finger. He moans when he tastes more blood. She whimpers again, and realises that she's been crying all this time. One of his teeth nick her finger, and at that point she waits to see if he'll bite the entire thing off and then finish her like he should be doing.

Instead, the Uruk sucks the entire finger into his mouth and draws back with a wet pop. It is sinfully erotic, and Lydia feels like she is being burnt alive as she stares into his eyes. He must be a demon, she decides, but she can't help but dip her finger back into Baldred's neck and tap it lightly on the Uruk's lips. He grins lecherously. The flesh between her legs aches terribly at that, and when he slowly sucks her finger again, she realises why men have such a fascination with women degrading themselves in such a way with their manhoods.

It takes a little effort and wiggling that makes the Uruk grunt in appreciation, but Lydia manages to prop Baldred's body to lean against hers, so that his neck rested on her shoulder and fell back to allow the Uruk full access. He looks at her in bewilderment at her offer, but eagerly ducks his mouth onto the open wound he made before.

Her wet cheeks seem fascinating to him, perhaps their salty taste. Lydia finds her lips rubbed against by his rough tongue, and hisses when it irritates the split lip Baldred kindly gifted her.

"Told yer." Lydia tiredly blinks up at the Uruk, unable to grasp what he is talking about at first. He's looking at her as if she was entirely bare in front of him, but she oddly doesn't feel the urge to run. Not like with Baldred.

Suddenly something else he as said comes to mind, and she clings to a possibility that would ease her bleeding morals. "Were you lying? About never having been on a raid before? You haven't forced yourself upon a woman?"

The Uruk shakes his head immediately, rasping " _Shar,_ I was only trained then sent to fight you lot. Probably one of the youngest of my kin."

The Uruk in question had watched her struggle to cut Baldred into pieces, and if anything she was disgusted to note that his arousal did not diminish. He commented here and there to put her weight onto her sword to cut through bone, but otherwise Lydia ignored him and left as she usual did, without a backwards glance.

She was again very lucky that her home was not in one of the busier streets in Edoras. The blood on her shoulder she rubbed away with Baldred's clothes, which were also thrown to the pigs. The sword itself, she could barely carry, and so she dropped it behind the large thorny bushes that sat outside the dungeon door.

As with everything Lydia did, she was practical and carried out her task with a clinical air. Shock was a funny thing. Even when she lay in her bed, the entire day seemed to be a hallucination. She later cried again, slept shortly and then rose early as usual to tend to the small garden of herbs behind her home.

An hour or so after Baldred would usually fetch her, Lydia makes her own way to the dungeons, purposely smiling lightly as she always did to any person she passed. When she enters Luzgrak's cell, his head is already staring at the doorway. An open smirk appears on his face. "Did he taste good?"

She glares hotly at him, setting down her bucket and unpacking her satchel of medical supplies as usual. "Don't be absurd. I left him for the swines."

Luzgrak snorts. "You whiteskins are so fucking picky."

"And your tongue is too loose." Lydia snaps back. To her immense irritation, the Uruk seems unlikely to fall mute ever again. He chatters on and on about the day before, leering at her to provoke some sort of reaction while she wets her sponge and starts to scrub him down.

Luzgrak grins lazily and his chest begins to rumble invitingly. "Be gentle, would you _tarka?"_

She curls her lip at him and rubs harder at his chest until he winces.

Luzgrak had not been beaten since she had left the day before, so after he has been washed (and made several insinuations for her to wash under his tented loincloth) she takes great pleasure in once again in emptying her bucket over his head and leaving the dungeons smirking. She finds herself some what comforted to hear his usual roar of outrage.

Lydia hurries down the passage way and turns a different way from the path she usually travels around the dungeon floors. She pauses outside the door at the end of the corridor, composing a false expression of nervous concern, then knocks lightly.

A guard she finds somewhat familiar opens the door and blinks in surprise. "My lady. Are you well?"

"I'm sorry to be a bother, but my usual guard has not appeared again today; I was wondering if Baldred was well?"

The man before her frowns, saying in alarm. "He has not been in the barracks this morning...you went down to tend the orc alone?"

 _He's an Uruk hai apparently,_ Lydia finds herself dryly correcting. Outwardly, she nods apologetically. "I was worried what would happen if my duties were not completed today, and thought that perhaps Baldred was only late."

"You should go home, my lady. We will find him, and talk some sense into him." The guard promises sternly.

"Oh please, don't be too harsh on him!" It takes all her efforts not to cackle at her own terrible acting, and how gullible a man could be to a shy maiden.

* * *

Lydia likes to think herself a sensible woman. She has to be, to put up with whining patients, gossiping do gooders trying to get her to marry their nephews and to live as an independent woman. It is a feat in itself, and one that she is mighty proud of, even if everyone else pities her for owning the fate of dying alone.

Because of this, Lydia is somewhat ashamed to realise that she is using denial as a cloak to ward away the Uruk. Honestly, what depravity had infected her? She had touched him as she would a lover, and _fed him Baldred's blood!_ The latter, no matter how twisted she knew it was, was something she did not regret. Lydia had wanted to make Baldred suffer even in death for what he had tried to do, and she was a vengeful woman if any.

She doesn't know how to proceed. Luzgrak is still refusing to talk to the soldiers, and she wanders if he really is so loyal to his comrades or whether he had been hunting alone all this time. She doesn't know why she wants him to stay silent now; if he is killed, she never has to work in the dungeons again, and can spend her time with other patients.

If she went to the guards and told them that Luzgrak was responsible for Baldred's death, it was likely they would also kill him.

Still, she keeps her silence.

Haleth is stationed as her guard again, and the once oppressive atmosphere that Baldred given the dungeons becomes lighter and safe again. This time however, Lydia is not so disgusted by the Uruk, but always wary. Haleth worries over her like he is courting her, which amuses and irritates her, even going so far as to carry a chair into the cell if she begins to feel faint. It remains unused.

Luzgrak does not like Haleth. He never liked him before, but now he watches the guard with narrowed eyes, looking like he wants nothing more than to end him. Lydia may not have a beau of her own, but she can recognise the jealous warning in the Uruk's eyes, just as she always knows when he's lusting after her. Knowing this should disgust her. Instead, she feels oddly proud and amused all at once.

Their time alone is non existent, with Haleth watching her as if she may trip one day and shatter like glass. It is immensely annoying. Lydia finds herself bored without hearing Luzgrak's gravelly voice. She finds herself indulging herself in other ways now. When she can, she runs her nails lightly along his skin, under the pretense of feeling for injuries. The side of his body facing away from Haleth is treated with slow massages with her skilled fingers, and in turn Luzgrak likes to play his own games on her. He makes that strange purring noise low enough for only to hear, and when she bends close enough as she washes his sides, sometimes he'll nip and lick her ear and neck.

It's incredibly intimate and the threat of being caught is thrilling. Both must supress any loud exclamations, and Lydia always leaves feeling frustrated in a way she knows means that her body wants Luzgrak. She is lusting after an _Uruk._ She should think herself filth, and lower than a common whore, but she has had whores as her patients and she finds them often to be women that are at their hearts good.

Lydia does not think herself good at heart, but she cannot think herself bad. She morns when a patient is lost. She celebrates when one is saved. She likes tending her herb garden, children and rejoiced with the rest of Rohan when the fires of Mordor extinguished. She still cherishes all she has done before, only now she wants Luzgrak to touch her freely. Lydia doubts he will love her like a man would; he would claim her like an animal, but she would be damned if she submitted to him entirely. Both would bite, and fight for control, and she imagined their joining would be sweeter for it.

She uses her time in the dungeons to absorb more of him; things that had been irrelevant before, like his scent as hard as it was to pick up sitting in a foul dungeon. Now that she washed him regularly, she found herself growing dizzy at the thick musk he emitted, something inherently masculine that she couldn't place. His skin she thought would be akin to the colour of rich wine in the daylight, though she could not imagine his hair to be anything but the thick inky mess it always was. In fitness, no other male could be compared to the extensive brutishness of his body. And always, his yellow eyes would be on her in a way that lodged the air into her throat.

Over the days after Baldred's death, Lydia begins to no longer feel guilt for her feelings. Another maiden of Rohan would no doubt has condemned herself weeks before, but she had never agreed with what much of her society deemed acceptable. She was too egocentric to ever put a husband's needs before her own; her uncle had been a stern man who took what he wanted, and Lydia had been brought up in much the same manner, most likely because her uncle chose to treat her like a boy to continue the family name. She was sharp, and wanted to know how to heal a man then with the same plant bring him to death's door, so she studied hard. Lydia was the woman she was today because she had never denied herself what she wanted, and now that was Luzgrak.

Luzgrak spent the days watching her possessively, as if he was planning to throw her over his shoulder and hide her away. He was surprised to find the same look in her own eyes, but after she began to, he decided that he had spent enough time in Edoras.

* * *

A week after the spring had began to make way for the summer winds, Haleth did not appear at Lydia's door. Several minutes after he usually did, she was alert; he was a punctual man who took his responsibilities very carefully, and for a moment she worried a little that he may be ill. She had even begun to run her fingers over her jarred collection of medicinal herbs when there was a sharp banging at her door that continued until she had opened it.

Instead, the sweating guard at her door is one she had treated for a dislocated shoulder last winter. "My lady, you are not hurt? Good. You must stay inside today and lock all entrances!"

Horror floods her veins, but she must ask. "What has happened?" As she speaks, the city bells have begun to ring.

"The Uruk has escaped! We thought he may have come here to harm you. I must rejoin the search, please-"

"Haleth, where is he?" Lydia asks in alarm.

"Dead, my lady."

* * *

Distantly, she can hear yelling and several children wailing next door. Lydia, like the rest of the citizens, have locked themselves in. It is now late in the evening. She sits in her chair by the fire, which has honey tea brewing and filling the room with a sweet golden warmth. Despite this, she feels very cold.

She feels fear. Haleth is gone, and while she is not the self pitying type, she knows she is to blame. As foolish and kind Haleth was, he is now lying in the dungeons with a torn out throat, much like Baldred had gone. As intelligent and strong she likes to think of herself, she was a fool. And now, she is hiding like a rabbit shivering in its burrow as the sly fox sniffs it out.

Would the Uruk come for her? Part of her wants him to. The rest of her knows that Luzgrak chained to the wall will be much more docile compared to Luzgrak that has killed Haleth, that is running free in the night.

Lydia imagines Luzgrak leaving Edoras, running into the forest to never be seen again, to live in the wild with the other beasts. That is where his kind belongs, and she hopes that he makes it, and that the past few months will fade into a dark secret to vaguely recall in the dusk of her life.

Her tea whistles to her impatiently. It is three hours into the new day, and her fourth cup when she hears claws slowly grating at her kitchen window. Without looking, Lydia gets up and unlocks the back door. She turns around without opening it and sits back in her spot by the fire. She begins to shake as she listens to his heavy breaths and his lazy footsteps towards her. She squeezes her eyes together as she feels his rough hands knot through her hair to knead her shoulders. It feels sinfully good and he growls in response to her moan. A moment later his face in her neck, feverishly breathing her in, then sucking at her. "Fuck, _tarka.._ fuck, fuck."

She never thought such vulgarness make her shudder so, and just like that, he dives in for her.

Lydia winces every time his teeth scrape her skin, and after he draws a little blood on her clavicle and begins to suck, she becomes lightheaded. She is panicking, unsure whether to break her teacup on Luzgrak's head or turn around and kiss him back. She feels too hot, and ill, and thinks that she is probably crying again by the way he suddenly darts back up to lick her cheeks again. _'This can't be healthy',_ she muses. What kind of lover is trustworthy when they delight in your blood and tears?

She gasps loudly when a claw scrapes her nipple through her nightgown, then roughly tugs down her dress to cup and squeeze her entire breast roughly. She whimpers and grabs onto his forearm, becoming even fainter as Luzgrak darkly chuckles. He starts to murmur Black Speech into her ear again. Lydia tenses and arches her body back and forth as her nipple is pinched and twisted, then the heat at her back disappears as Luzgrak moves around to chair to place himself between her legs. He takes her nipple into his baking mouth. She yells and grabs at his head, instinctively bucking against him. Her other breast is grabbed and played with, and after a time his mouth swaps and leaves behind a swollen nub that is now slick.

Lydia vaguely notes that he is a messy lover. Her upper body is entirely covered in saliva, on top of how sweaty she feels. He is also never silent. While he seems to be lost in his own language, even his breathing is gritty and consumes her like a second heartbeat.

Luzgrak looks up at her, as he tugs back the folds of her dress, and crudely sniffs as their eyes lock. He leers, rubbing her upper thighs before pressing his entire face into her womanhood. Lydia yells. The teacup is knocked off the table by her foot. She finds out that his tongue is long, and disturbingly textured.

And then the feeling of being drowned and burned alive is swept away as a close by shout of a guard is heard. Suddenly she has been dragged to her feet, and Luzgrak pushes her behind him as he snarls at both doors. They both stand as stone, waiting. But no one breaks in with swords swinging, and after sniffing the air slightly, the Luzgrak's posture loosens again, and he stalks over to Lydia again, grinning toothily and quickly catching up to her hurried steps backwards. She feels the handle of her backdoor press into her lower ribs as he presses against her, and while she knows what she must do she still catches his mouth as he bends down again.

Like the first time she kissed him, Luzgrak is startled, but as she expects his yellow eyes narrow and he grabs her head to force his tongue into her mouth with a satisfied snarl. There is a brutality to him that is overwhelming, Lydia is reminded yet again. His rough tongue darts in and out crudely in an imitation of what a true joining between them would be, and as she looks back at his smug eyes she knows that it is on purpose. He wants to taunt her in every turn, to dominate and dig deep into her.

And she wants him to. She opens her stance as he rubs against her, and her womanhood feels like it is burning as his erection moves against it. His claws squeeze her behind to pull her closer. She tries to tear at his hide with her blunt fingers, moaning even louder when she catches Luzgrak mumble against her that she is _so fucking sweet,_ and she commits it to memory that he really likes it when she drinks honey tea.

It feels like the world begins and ends at her cabin, and that there is nothing for her outside of him.

And yet, for all that she is, it can never be said that Lydia is not a practical woman. As soon as she feels Luzgrak's body begin to slump, she twists the door handle and they both fly out into the freezing open air. She twists them so that she is luckily not caught under his massive bulk, and without a second to waste grabs the garden pot behind her and slams it once, twice, three times against his skull.

Luzgrak does not move.

But there is nothing to despair, as Lydia gingerly sticks a finger into the Uruk's mouth to find the small flower bud that he had unknowingly been given by their rather intrusive kissing. Widow's Slumber was a beautiful, tasteless flower the size of a common daisy, but with five petals of a deep purple. Lydia knows, of course, that while the bloom is harmless until boiled, the unspoilt bud can be chewed to induce a heavy sleep. Traditionally, it is used to calm women who are in deep mourning and have trouble sleeping alone. And naturally, Lydia also knows that by drinking a large amount of tea before placing it in her own mouth, the thick gauze of honey would essentially numb her mouth to the effects of Widow's Slumber.

Certain that the Uruk is in fact unconscious, she hurries inside to grab a long reel of rope previously taken from the stables, and wraps it many times around his limbs like a present. Now Lydia is fortunate in this situation, because of her desire for privacy, to live at the very edge of the low wall that circles around the large hill Edoras sits upon. Being one level up, the wall is low and slightly crumbled from the view point of her side, so Lydia ties the end of the rope to the old beech in the edge of her property, and after checking that Luzgrak could indeed survive such a fall, she pushes him over the edge.

Perhaps in another life, Luzgrak would have met his end at the base of Edoras. However as it were, the lengths of rope around him served to slow his descent as they rapidly unwound to deposit him on the ground. Lydia stares for a moment at the unmoving mass of limbs, then moves to pull the rope back up and tidies the garden of any sign of mischief. She carries out a very familiar looking bucket, and with a sly smirk, empties the freezing water to the unfortunate Uruk who became her patient.

She hears an expected roar of shock, and smiles.

* * *

It is almost hilarious how Lydia is never suspected of anything at the end of it all. Luzgrak had attracted the attention of every armed man in Edoras with his shout, but out of sheer luck and the advantage of having the darkness on his side, made it to the forest line and disappeared. Lydia watched the entire party of Rohirrim soldiers chases after film, torches lighting their path as they chased after him, finding it all rather parties of rides sent to hunt him down were failures. Baldred's bloody sword was found later, and it was decided that the Uruk must have somehow been the cause as well. Somehow.

Lydia settled flowers on Haleth's grave, and spat on Balred's. She had tea with Haleth's ageing mother, avoided all attempts to be courted by the nephew and carried on with her work. She was considered brave, when it became known that she had been in such danger as to having to help the guards as they tried to make the Uruk talk. The raids in Rohan continued for a time, then began to drift further into the forest and out of Rohirrim territory.

The disruption to the peace was forgotten by all but Lydia. She had placed all memory of the incident of Luzgrak the Uruk in a deeply guarded corner of her mind, but it was never dismissed. And after 2 years, she found herself sitting next to the rider of her wagon as she travelled out of Edoras.

"We will miss you, Miss Lydia." The wagon driver cheerfully tells her as they begin to see a small village right by the forest edge and the end of Rohan. It has been a week since riding out of Edoras, and has altogether been a quite journey. "Can't imagine why you'd leave though."

Lydia smiles lightly, "It has been something I've thought about for a while actually. A friend's mother has recently passed away, and gave me ownership of her old home that was never sold once she left to Edoras."

The wagon driver grunted. "Message from Eru for you, I expect."

They were soon slowing as they passed the first of several fenced farmlands, and Lydia could make out the cottage that would now be her home, sitting further away from the other collection of houses with several trees around it as if the forest was trying to consume it. "Be careful now Miss, we don't get raids nowadays but you're awfully close to the woods."

Again Lydia smiles. "Don't worry, I'm sure I'll grow used to the wolves and such." She thanks the rather unnerved looking wagon driver and guides him and a hired hand as they carry her possessions to her new home. It is made of browning thatch, mossy timber and was surrounded by several withering paths of rock. Inside, the ceiling is lower than her last home, and smells like the forest it sits before.

She spends the day unpacking and cleaning, deciding where to grow her herbs and introducing herself to the villagers. They are happy to have such a reputable healer among them, and so she knows business will be good. One family seem to be particularly good bakers that she plans to better chat with later.

He had picked up her scent after three days out of Edoras, she knows this. The rest of the journey she had felt his eyes all the way to the village, and tonight she knows what to expect. At night, she leaves her door unlocked. She brews honey tea, and this time does not put any buds in the corners of her mouth. She unpacks as she waits, and when her door creaks open and a deep growl sounds behind her, she smiles.

Luzgrak looks both hungry and furious. When she stands to meet him, he grabs her jaw and yanks it open to look inside. Lydia cannot help it, she cackles openly. "I can't believe you actually fell for that old trick, Uruk."

He snarls in her face, and does in fact flush with embarrassment. "Fuckin' _tarka,_ what took you so long to get out of that shithole?"

She raises a eyebrow at him. "What makes you think I left for you?" And before he could say anything else, she kisses him...

...And abruptly pulls back in disgust. "Oh for fuck's sake, what now?!" Luzgrak demands.

Lydia boxes his ear, deftly avoiding his snapping jaws. "You expect me to lie with you in this state? Eru, you smell vile! And I don't know what you've been eating but it certainly was unsavoury!"

Infuriatingly, he leans in as she hisses, leering. "You gonna wash me again, _tarka?"_

She sniffs. "I don't think there's a well with cold enough water around here, but I think I brought that bucket with me..."

A warning growl, a feminine screech and a very broken barrel later, one might think that the Uruk had won this round. However Lydia as ever, was a practical woman...

She always had a spare.


End file.
